Scaramouche by Rafael Sabatini (important of reading books TXT) 📕

“After you had first incited them to do it. I suppose you were afraid of your work. You drew back at the last moment. But you said things of M. de Lesdiguieres, if you are correctly reported, which he will never forgive.”

“I see,” said Andre-Louis, and he fell into thought.

But Mlle. de Kercadiou had already done what thinking was necessary, and her alert young mind had settled all that was to be done.

“You must not go into Gavrillac,” she told him, “and you must get down from your horse, and let me take it. I will stable it at the chateau to-night. And sometime to morrow afternoon, by when you should be well away, I will return it to the Breton arme.”

“Oh, but that is impossible.”

“Impossible? Why?”

“For several reasons. One of them is that you haven’t considered what will happen to you if you do such a thing.”

“To me? Do you suppose I am afraid of that pack of oafs sent by M. Lesdiguieres? I have committed no sedition.”

“But it is almost as bad to give aid to one who is wanted for the crime. That is the law.”

“What do I care for the law? Do you imagine that the law will presume to touch me?”

“Of course there is that. You are sheltered by one of the abuses I complained of at Rennes. I was forgetting.”

“Complain of it as much as you please, but meanwhile profit by it. Come, Andre, do as I tell you. Get down from your horse.” And then, as he still hesitated, she stretched out and caught him by the arm. Her voice was vibrant with earnestness. “Andre, you don’t realize how serious is your position. If these people take you, it is almost certain that you will be hanged. Don’t you realize it? You must not go to Gavrillac. You must go away at once, and lie completely lost for a time until this blows over. Indeed, until my uncle can bring influence to bear to obtain your pardon, you must keep in hiding.”

“That will be a long time, then,” said Andre-Louis. M. de Kercadiou has never cultivated friends at court.”

“There is M. de La Tour d’Azyr,” she reminded him, to his astonishment.

“That man!” he cried, and then he laughed. “But it was chiefly against him that I aroused the resentment of the people of Rennes. I should have known that all my speech was not reported to you.”

“It was, and that part of it among the rest.”

“Ah! And yet you are concerned to save me, the man who seeks the life of your future husband at the hands either of the law or of the people? Or is it, perhaps, that since you have seen his true nature revealed in the murder of poor Philippe, you have changed your views on the subject of becoming Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr?”

“You often show yourself without any faculty of deductive reasoning.”

“Perhaps. But hardly to the extent of imagining that M. de La Tour d’Azyr will ever lift a finger to do as you suggest.”

“In which, as usual, you are wrong. He will certainly do so if I ask him.”

“If you ask him?” Sheer horror rang in his voice.

“Why, yes. You see, I have not yet said that I will be Marquise de La Tour d’Azyr. I am still considering. It is a position that has its advantages. One of them is that it ensures a suitor’s complete obedience.”

“So, so. I see the crooked logic of your mind. You might go so far as to say to him: ‘Refuse me this, and I shall refuse to be your marquise.’ You would go so far as that?”

“At need, I might.”

“And do you not see the converse implication? Do you not see that your hands would then be tied, that you would be wanting in honour if afterwards you refused him? And do you think that I would consent to anything that could so tie your hands? Do you think I want to see you damned, Aline?”

Her hand fell away from his arm.

“Oh, you are mad!” she exclaimed, quite out of patience.

“Possibly. But I like my madness. There is a thrill in it unknown to such sanity as yours. By your leave, Aline, I think I will ride on to Gavrillac.”

“Andre, you must not! It is death to you!” In her alarm she backed her horse, and pulled it across the road to bar his way.

It was almost completely night by now; but from behind the wrack of clouds overhead a crescent moon sailed out to alleviate the darkness.

“Come, now,” she enjoined him. “Be reasonable. Do as I bid you. See, there is a carriage coming up behind you. Do not let us be found here together thus.”

He made up his mind quickly. He was not the man to be actuated by false heroics about dying, and he had no fancy whatever for the gallows of M. de Lesdiguieres’ providing. The immediate task that he had set himself might be accomplished. He had made heard - and ringingly - the voice that M. de La Tour d’Azyr imagined he had silenced. But he was very far from having done with life.

“Aline, on one condition only.”

“And that?”

“That you swear to me you will never seek the aid of M. de La Tour d’Azyr on my behalf.”

“Since you insist, and as time presses, I consent. And now ride on with me as far as the lane. There is that carriage coming up.”

The lane to which she referred was one that branched off the road some three hundred yards nearer the village and led straight up the hill to the chateau itself. In silence they rode together towards it, and together they turned into that thickly hedged and narrow bypath. At a depth of fifty yards she halted him.

“Now!” she bade him.

Obediently he swung down from his horse, and surrendered the reins to her.

“Aline,” he said, “I haven’t words in which to thank you.”

“It isn’t necessary,” said she.

“But I shall hope to repay you some day.”

“Nor is that necessary. Could I do less than I am doing? I do not want to hear of you hanged, Andre; nor does my uncle, though he is very angry with you.”

“I suppose he is.”

“And you can hardly be surprised. You were his delegate, his representative. He depended upon you, and you have turned your coat. He is rightly indignant, calls you a traitor, and swears that he will never speak to you again. But he doesn’t want you hanged, Andre.”

“Then we are agreed on that at least, for I don’t want it myself.”

“I’ll make your peace with him. And now - good-bye, Andre. Send me a word when you are safe.”

She held out a hand that looked ghostly in the faint light. He took it and bore it to his lips.

“God bless you, Aline.”

She was gone, and he stood listening to the receding clopper-clop of hooves until it grew faint in the distance. Then slowly, with shoulders hunched and head sunk on his breast, he retraced his steps to the main road, cogitating whither he should go. Quite suddenly he checked, remembering with dismay that he was almost entirely without money. In Brittany itself he knew of no dependable hiding-place, and as long as he was in Brittany his peril must remain imminent. Yet to leave the province, and to leave it as quickly as prudence dictated, horses would be necessary. And how was he to procure horses, having no money beyond a single louis d’or and a few pieces of silver?

There was also the fact that he was very weary. He had had little sleep since Tuesday night, and not very much then; and much of the time had been spent in the saddle, a wearing thing to one so little accustomed to long rides. Worn as he was, it was unthinkable that he should go far to-night. He might get as far as Chavagne, perhaps. But there he must sup and sleep; and what, then, of to-morrow?

Had he but thought of it before, perhaps Aline might have been able to assist him with the loan of a few louis. His first impulse now was to follow her to the chateau. But prudence dismissed the notion. Before he could reach her, he must be seen by servants, and word of his presence would go forth.

There was no choice for him; he must tramp as far as Chavagne, find a bed there, and leave to-morrow until it dawned. On the resolve he set his face in the direction whence he had come. But again he paused. Chavagne lay on the road to Rennes. To go that way was to plunge further into danger. He would strike south again. At the foot of some meadows on this side of the village there was a ferry that would put him across the river. Thus he would avoid the village; and by placing the river between himself and the immediate danger, he would obtain an added sense of security.

A lane, turning out of the highroad, a quarter of a mile this side of Gavrillac, led down to that ferry. By this lane some twenty minutes later came Andre-Louis with dragging feet. He avoided the little cottage of the ferryman, whose window was alight, and in the dark crept down to the boat, intending if possible to put himself across. He felt for the chain by which the boat was moored, and ran his fingers along this to the point where it was fastened. Here to his dismay he found a padlock.

He stood up in the gloom and laughed silently. Of course he might have known it. The ferry was the property of M. de La Tour d’Azyr, and not likely to be left unfastened so that poor devils might cheat him of seigneurial dues.

There being no possible alternative, he walked back to the cottage, and rapped on the door. When it opened, he stood well back, and aside, out of the shaft of light that issued thence.

“Ferry!” he rapped out, laconically.

The ferryman, a burly scoundrel well known to him, turned aside to pick up a lantern, and came forth as he was bidden. As he stepped from the little porch, he levelled the lantern so that its light fell on the face of this traveller.

“My God!” he ejaculated.

“You realize, I see, that I am pressed,” said Andre-Louis, his eyes on the fellow’s startled countenance.

“And well you may be with the gallows waiting for you at Rennes,” growled the ferryman. “Since you’ve been so foolish as to come back to Gavrillac, you had better go again as quickly as you can. I will say nothing of having seen you.”

“I thank you, Fresnel. Your advice accords with my intention. That is why I need the boat.”

“Ah, that, no,” said Fresnel, with determination. “I’ll hold my peace, but it’s as much as my skin is worth to help you.

“You need not have seen my face. Forget that you have seen it.”

“I’ll do that, monsieur. But that is all I will do. I cannot put you across the river.”

“Then give me the key of the boat, and I will put myself across.”

“That is the same thing. I cannot. I’ll hold my tongue, but I will not - I dare not - help you.”

Andre-Louis looked a moment into that sullen, resolute face, and understood. This man, living under the shadow of La Tour d’Azyr, dared exercise no will that might be